CHAPTER 52
TO HIS SISTER
CHAPTER 52Visible text2 paragraphs
PETERSBURG,
March 16. Midnight.
March 16. Midnight.
I have just seen the Italian actress Duse in Shakespeare's _Cleopatra_. I don't know Italian, but she acted so well that it seemed to me I understood every word. A remarkable actress! I have never seen anything like it before. I gazed at that Duse and felt overcome with misery at the thought that we have to educate our temperaments and tastes on such wooden actresses as N. and her like, whom we call great because we have seen nothing better. Looking at Duse I understood why it is that the Russian theatre is so dull.